Adaptive Packet Length Strategy to Minimize End-to-End Latency for Time-Varying Channels

In real applications, wireless networks typically suffer from interference and large channel quality fluctuation. In order to ensure the latency requirements of real-time applications and reduce the packet header overhead, in this paper we proposes an adaptive packet length strategy, which is based on the number of symbols (the K-PK strategy) by joint optimization in the network layer and the physical layer. Simulations and analysis show that the K-PK strategy provides an optimal value of k that can get the lowest latency and balances the packet header overhead for a given channel with certain bit error probability. Compared with the adaptive packet length strategy based on fixed timeslot (the T-PK strategy), the K-PK strategy is more suitable for the situation of channel with poor quality and volatility. We propose a K-PK algorithm in time-varying channel, which adjusts the number of symbols according to K-PK strategy. We use Four-state Markovian chain channel model to simulate fast time-varying channel. The simulation results show that K-PK strategy can obtain a lower latency and it is better than T-PK strategy for fast time varying channel.